With Shrinking Economies and Brexit Uncertainty will Norfolk County Council Finally Have Some Common Sense & Help Small Businesses Grow?

Will the New Year bring a new brown antique road sign for The Warehouse Antiques and Collectables?

Today (20th December 2018) the antique shop was informed that the ​Review of Brown Signs Policy by ​Environment, development and transport committee has been scheduled in for the 18th January.

The antique centre has now been opened a year and for much of this year has been trying to apply for a brown tourist sign with Norfolk Highways.

Apparently, we are not eligible for an Brown antique centre sign as they are classing us as a retail outlet and antique centres are not tourist attractions in ​Norfolk​even though central government information says they are.

We believe, that like the rest of the country we are eligible for a brown tourist sign.

Due to our large advertising budget and quality of our centre it is estimated that we are currently attracting over 40,000 visitors per year, which is growing rapidly and we are the 5th biggest free attraction in Norfolk - this is a major amount of traffic!

A brown tourist sign is universally recognized as a precursor to something of interest for everyone and is primarily a means of directing visitors safely to their destination, many of whom have never been in our area before

The A10 is a very busy road and quite honestly the current road signs versus the sheer number of visitors are totally inadequate and present a danger to visitors and other road users alike.

We have over 100 independent dealers that trade in the antique centre and are currently employing 8 part-time staff all in various roles - roads signs play an important role in serving Norfolk’s economic needs and commercial success and income from tourism plays a major part in funding our councils.

Why is the official Antique centre sign recognised as a tourist attraction throughout the country but not in Norfolk?

Derek Clark, Director at The Warehouse Antiques and Collectable said “At last there seems to be progress and hopefully a sensible decision will be made, we are all feeling very positive about 2019 and are grateful to all those who have helped us so far with this issue”